This is a long overdue post covering Dell EMC World 2017 in Las Vegas and the announcements that were made during the event. I’ll recap some of the topics that resonated most with me, namely that cloud computing is not a place but a way of doing IT. Secondly, I spoke briefly with some of the Dell EMC server guys whom give me hope that the Dell 14th generation servers are a big step up from previous experiences. Finally, I’ll share a bit of insight in what the Dell EMC Elect picked up during an interview with John Roese, and will link to a few posts from friends that attended Dell EMC World 2017. Maybe it’s a bit more of a “Dear diary,”-style post, so hang in there.
cloud
9 posts
On the first day of Dell EMC World 2017 in Las Vegas a few important announcements were made. It covered both product announcements and other industry developments. I’ll try to cover a few that stood out to me, and how they will impact the people that run the IT infrastructure. This workforce transformation as Dell EMC calls it, might be more challenging than simply making a system a bit faster with flash.
Moving your data and applications to the cloud isn’t the easiest of tasks, if you want to do it right. There’s a multitude of decisions to make. Some you’ll get wrong, which might make you reconsider your cloud operating model or cloud provider. Which brings the next question: are you locked-in at your cloud provider? Can you move your data between clouds?
One start-up that attempts to make the move to the cloud and moving between clouds easier, is Elastifile. An Israeli company, founded in 2013 with its first version of the product out in Q4-2016, it created the Elastifile Cross-Cloud Data Fabric. Their objective: bring cloud-like efficiency to the on-premises cloud, and facilitate a easy lift-and-shift into the hybrid cloud.
There’s no denying that off-premises cloud services are growing. Just look at the year-to-year growth of big public cloud providers. There’s big potential if you focus on two aspects of cloud. The first is speeding up access to data that is potentially not located in the same city or even geographic area. The second is supporting new protocols and storage methodologies that are suited for cloud native applications. One player in this area of IT is Avere, which aims to connect on-premises storage and compute to their siblings in the cloud.
When the news about the Dell and EMC merger became public last year, I was somewhat skeptical. I’ve had some really sketchy experiences with Dell servers and storage products, so it didn’t feel like a step forward. At the same time there was the organizational and support aspect. Mergers usually result in confusion for both sales processes and us people in the field having to glue all the products together. Not something I was looking forward to.
Lo and behold: I got an invite from the EMC Elect program to attend DellEMCWorld in Austin, Texas! This was my chance to fly over there and experience the merger announcements firsthand, plus ask questions. So I did! And I have to say: I was impressed.